Re tires, the uglier the tread pattern, the better they'll perform in the Winter; with the trade-off of much weaker performance in the wet. Wet performance will be heavily weighted on tread-depth.
I keep hearing this from everyone, including tire 'experts', but, at a steady state speed, straight line on the highway, my 195/60-15 General Altimax Arctic 12s (made by Conti), have never given me any problems in the summer WET conditions.
When pumped up higher than most on here would ever do (like 46 PSI front 43 PSI rear), they are also amazingly decent handling for as hard core 'tready' and siped, and TALL side-walled as they are, (on a 7" wheel at least), but yes, ultimately you must remember what have on the car, and NOT hoon seriously.
Coming back from NEFR in Maine last weekend, I hit some of the hardest downpours I've ever seen in my 66 years of living, on 84 east through Connecticut, and on the top of 287 south in northern Joyzee.
I was going up to 75 MPH through a lot of that (to get around, and away from, the multitudinous left lane bandits, and creepers going 40 or under), and never ONCE did the steering ever feel 'light', or the car become disconnected to the road due to hydroplaning.
They do only have about 3K miles on them, at most, so yes, that does help a bunch.